In 1984, towards the end of Ronald Reagan's first term as president, John Milius, a gifted, rightwing maverick writer-director, made Red Dawn, a "what-if" thriller in which a division of Soviet and Latin American troops takes over a small Colorado town where they're confronted by a band of local teenage guerrillas. Milius's unfashionable patriotism and old-fashioned regard for honour and heroism, as well as his considerable cinematic gifts, gave the movie a certain distinction – in my eyes at least, though not in those of most colleagues. This remake was embarked on three years ago with Chinese invaders, and after a change in Sino-American relations it was reshot to make North Koreans the enemy. The directorial debut of a well-known specialist in stunt work and second-unit action sequences, it is a foolish, ill-considered undertaking, the unexpected topicality of which makes it all the sillier.